Usually not, and gutters don't fix what most people are trying to fix. A dripping ceiling inside a container is condensation, not rain getting in, and gutters do nothing for that. Where they help is keeping roof runoff from sheeting down the doors and pooling right where you stand to open them, which matters most on a container set close to a house or shop.
The question usually starts with someone opening their container after a cold night and finding the ceiling beaded with water. That's condensation, sometimes called container rain, and it's caused by warm, humid air inside meeting a roof that cooled faster overnight. The water was already inside as vapor; the cold steel just pulled it out of the air.
Gutters manage water on the outside of a roof. Condensation is a problem entirely on the inside of a sealed box. No amount of roof drainage changes what's happening to the humid air trapped underneath it, which is why gutters are the wrong tool for that particular drip.
A container roof is slightly crowned and sheds rain on its own most of the time, running off the edges and down the corrugated side panels. On a stand-alone container in an open spot, that's rarely a problem, since the water just soaks into the ground a foot or two from the base.
Gutters earn their place when that runoff has somewhere specific it shouldn't go: sheeting straight down over the door hinges every time it rains, or pooling right at the spot where someone stands to work the cam locks. Diverting that water off to the side keeps the door area usable in a downpour instead of a small waterfall every time you open up.
Set close to a house, shop, or barn, a container's roof runoff can also feed water toward a foundation that's supposed to stay dry, the same reason downspouts on a house get extended away from a container parked nearby. Tying a gutter into that same drainage plan makes sense there.
A container doing double duty as a lean-to roof over a workbench or equipment, where someone's underneath it regularly, is another case where keeping water off to one side is worth the small cost. Outside those situations, it's an upgrade most owners never miss.
If what's actually bothering you is water inside the box, start with what's loaded into it. Dry goods up on pallets with breathing room around the stack solve most condensation before it starts, since most of the trapped moisture rides in on damp cargo or wet ground underneath the container rather than falling from the sky.
Beyond that, passive vents let humid air escape before it ever cools against the roof, and desiccants work well for short-term, sealed storage. Insulation is the step up for anything you'll actually work inside. None of those are gutters, and none of them cost much to try first.
Tell us what the container will sit next to and whether it's the roof or the inside you're worried about, and we'll tell you what actually helps.
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